I was a sophomore in high school the first time I went skiing. I went to Echo Summit with my best friend and his family—it was in 1971. Echo had a rope tow and a poma lift (aka platter lift), both of which required considerable skill to master just going up the hill, as I remember it! I still have my first lift ticket—a thin strip of red and white paper with a hole in it that cost all of six dollars and fifty cents. That same year, my friend Keith and I also skied a time or two more just down the road from Echo, at Sierra Ski Ranch—what is today Sierra at Tahoe, a first class ski resort near the summit on Highway 50 (see their ad in ALIVE Magazine).
I fell in love with skiing—so much so, I started a business in 1976 with a goal of being able to earn enough money to pay for my 
lift tickets and gas. I chartered buses and took groups of skiers up to a variety of ski areas. My company was called BASA—the Bay Area Ski Association. People seemed to like what we were doing, and by 1990, along with my wife, Peggy and an amazing team, we were running a fleet of seven of our own buses, running trips five days per week to six different ski areas in the Sierras.
BASA was like an airline (the way they used to be) on wheels—we had hostesses on each trip who served breakfast on the way up and dinner during the ride home. And where today most lift tickets alone cost over $100, in the late 1980s a BASA trip cost just $49—and that included round trip transportation, a full day lift ticket, breakfast, and dinner.
The recent Winter Olympics inspired me to write about my love of skiing, share a bit of skiing history about “hotdogging,” and of a serendipitous experience I had years ago involving one the sport’s most decorated champions (see page 26).
And immediately following that article, be sure to check out the information about the upcoming U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame Induction event, to be held at Squaw Valley USA, this coming April 12-15, 2018. If you’d like to meet some of the top skiers and snowborders of all time, this is your chance. And in case you already miss seeing him on TV during the Olympics, the induction ceremony emcee will be none other than Olympic Medal Winner Johnny Mosely.
I hope you enjoy this issue of ALIVE as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Until next month… keep your edges sharp!
For tickets to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame event, go to https://snowsporthistory.com/event/
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